Journey: Through the Eyes of a Mechanical Man

I’ll be straight with you, I find it difficult to write a fair piece about Journey. To do so is to straddle the thin, precarious line between professional objectivity and an intense, boiling hatred whose blame I can hardly place on the game itself. But as the game of the year awards began to mount – most recently the NeoGAF community’s choice – I felt now was the moment to break out my opinion pen for the first time.

Much has been made about the importance of getting the “true” Journey experience: a pure, almost simplistic endeavor with another kindred spirit, preferably one who is also going in sight unseen. This was my experience. I purchased the game at launch, or rather in the launch week, and sat myself in front of my TV that same night. I met a fellow wanderer as soon as I understand possible: the expansive broken bridge area just beyond the first “checkpoint”. With him (or her), I made my way through the game in a single sitting. We surfed the glistening sands together, chirping triumphantly as the scenery flashed by during out descent. We tiptoed fearfully through the underground passages, doing our utmost to stick close as the dragonlike beast lurked overhead. We huddled together for warmth and camaraderie as our ascent turned frigid. We chirped desperately and mournfully as our wanderers slowly ground to a halt, the voices fading as the light of life dimmed so close – so close – to the summit. And when we were reborn in a most delirious fashion, the chirping became constant, almost incessant; our overwhelming joy was matched by the desire to share it with each other. And when the journey ended, on my screen appeared but a single name. While this name is lost to me, it’s significance remains clear: it was just the two of us, start to finish. My Journey experience couldn’t have gone better if Jenova Chen himself was there to guide me through it. Quite the opposite, in fact. So what did I think as the game looped back to the start and I powered down the PS3, my mind flush with emotion?

“Well, that was a pretty neat experience.”

Thud.

Over the course of this generation, beginning when I was but a tender 13 years old, I’ve seen my taste as a gamer begin to crystallize, perhaps in a way that runs contrary to my video game upbringing. My favorite games up to that point had been primarily JRPGs: I could, various points, claim Skies of Arcadia, Baten Kaitos, Tales of Symphonia, or Super Mario RPG as my favorite game, primarily because of the story they told or the atmosphere they created. I was for the most part what I call an “experience gamer”.

The turning point came in 2005, rather early in fact. I maintain to this day that Resident Evil 4 is the most expertly-crafted, astonishingly well-designed game ever made, an absolute marvel that may never be topped in it’s genre. My undying love for RE4 does not stem from the visuals, nor the soundtrack, nor the voice acting. Neither will you find it in the atmosphere, the one-liners, or the way Leon pronounces Luis. Make no mistake, these aspects contribute greatly to the overall quality (and memorable nature) of the product. But what makes Resident Evil 4 so great, what makes it a game I had played a dozen times over and will gladly play countless time more, are the core combat mechanics, the moment-to-moment primary player input that you spend the vast majority of your time interacting with. I could, and probably will at some point, write an entire article on the brilliance of RE4’s combat mechanics. But the point is this: my favorite games over the last decade and – Resident Evil 4, Dark Souls, the Fire Emblems, Valkyria Chronicles, Metroid Prime – all got there through the strength of the core gameplay element.  This is where Journey fails.

There are those who insist on arguing that Journey should not be showered with press accolades for the reason that it is not a game at all, it’s mechanics so specious and subdued that it is something other. I find that a rather ridiculous argument to make. Journey is a game, make no mistake. It is simply a bad one. And most ardent supporters would likely agree with me. You see, that is the difference between mechanical gamers like myself, and the experience gamers who have dominated this generation with their Bioshocks and and Uncharteds and The Walking Deads and Skyrims and so on; people who value the immersive or emotion-invoking quality of a game over the mechanical competence that I find compelling. Scarce is the praise for Journey’s puzzles, or it’s platforming, or it’s level design, or it’s challenge, or real mechanical component. Fans of the game instead seem to have subconsciously decided as a whole that nauseating hyperbole of the “experience” would guide their assessments. If I had a dollar for every piggyback use of the word “transcendent”…

Now let me step back for a moment, if I may. The demon of self-righteousness and condescension seems to be rearing it’s head again. A bother, that one.

As I said before, I regard Journey as an interesting, unique co-op experience that left me satisfied that thatgamecompany had accomplished exactly what they had set out to do. Mechanically shallow and devoid of any genuine gameplay hooks, to be sure, but it was an absolute audio-visual feat with an impressively minimalistic co-op system that truly made you feel a connection to your partner, something I will readily admit I have never felt in a game before. For experience gamers, this is enough to catapult it to the top of their lists this year. For me, the mechanical man, this is barely enough to crack my top 20, without checking if I’ve even played that many titles this year.

Judging by the reception it has received, both at launch and this GOTY awards season, I may be in the minority. And that revelation has managed to do something that Journey never could: It has elicited a genuine emotion.

Sadness.

First Look: Grasshopper’s Killer is Dead

The next title from the maniacal mind of Suda 51, Killer is Dead stars the arm-cannon wielding, katana slinging assassin Mondo Zappa in this hyper-violent, ultra-stylized actioner. While I can’t quite count myself among the ranks of the Suda faithful, I am interested to see the refinements and changes made from the cult-classic No More Heroes, the fatally flawed 2008 joint that Killer shares more than a passing resemblance to. More terrific bosses, fewer meatbag gauntlets. Please?